One Life

THREE

. . .

. . .I LOOK AT nobody as we're led off the stage in our new pairs. Especially not at the strange boy beside me who refuses to speak.

I can hear Nox's seething breaths behind me and the angry whispers between Odessa and Helios, who refused to stand with their new partners. Everyone else walks as far apart as the guides allow.

The boy at my side is cold. Very cold. No warmth like Onaians radiate, or very smiley for that matter. If I didn't know any better, I would assume he's a Depravar.

He still has sunglasses on.

We head out of the stadium through a tunnel beneath the lower bowls. The guides have given up on any chatter—everyone, for different reasons, is pissed. The Onaians because we've trained with our partners for years, only to be given a new one, and the Vaelis because they're stuck with Onaians.

I can see it in the way they exchange looks, how they look at us. But I suppose we're doing the same.

"Take those damn glasses off Hydro freak," Nox snorts from behind me, reaching out a hand to do it himself. I'm about to stop him when Kane swivels and catches his arm in an instant.

"Don't touch me."

Nox is too stunned to speak. Some of the other contestants look on with concealed interest, and Nymisa, utterly miserable standing beside Nox, stands a little shorter. Kane readjusts himself and keeps walking. I glare at the ground.

We finally exit the stadium. A crowd of people stand behind barricades lines on each side, waving and cheering. I'm trying hard to be angry, to focus on the complete disaster that has potentially ruined something I've wanted all my life—but I can't help from getting caught up in the excitement.

A little red-haired girl hands me a piece of paper and I realize with a start that she wants me to sign it. Her mother laughs, and I scribble my signature with their pen. "I want to be just like you," the girl says.

I grin. "You're already halfway there—nice hair!"

She shrieks with excitement and I move on to the next, a boy close to my age. His friends laugh like idiots as he hands me a pen and asks me to sign his forehead. I do as told. Nox comes up behind me and nudges the boys back with his power.

"They're just having fun," I say. Nox rolls his eyes and moves on.

The next people to call my name are a pair of Synth girls. I talk to them a bit, show them my fire, and take a flower bouquet with the PR smile Father has ingrained into me.

"Can you grab your partner?" One of them says. The other giggles.

"Oh, Nox?"

They shake their heads. "No, Kane! Yeah, he's from the Vale, but he's so—"

"Val! Val!"

I immediately accept the distraction of a familiar voice, but when I snap my head in the direction of it only to see a frantic Zidia Lavigne, I wish I'd gone and found Kane for these girls. She waves me over. Her face is pale, more pale than usual. Without a moment's consideration, she ducks under the barrier and runs at me, grabbing my shoulders.

"Zidia—"

"You need to go," she says lowly. "You need to get out of here. Don't do this!"

I frown. She's freaking people out, so I push her off of me and give her a look that I hope says to stop acting like a loon.